“Wait until we get on the road with the sledges,” answered Barwell Dawson. “Then you’ll see some fancy doings with the whips. Some of those chaps can reach a dog twenty feet away, and take a nip out of his hide as quick as a wink. That’s the way they get the dogs under such perfect control.”
“I wish I could learn how to drive the dogs,” said Andy.
“You’ll have plenty of chance, when we get on the move again,” returned the explorer.
Two days later, Andy was walking from the storehouse to the ship when, in the dim light from the lamp near the hut, he saw something unusual that attracted his attention. A man was crawling along on all-fours, muttering wildly to himself.
“Whatever can that fellow be up to?” asked the boy of himself. For the instant he thought he might be mistaken, and that the form was that of some wild beast.
His curiosity aroused to a high pitch, the lad stopped short, and then made a detour, coming up on the opposite side of the storehouse. Here he found the man, still on all-fours, bending over a case of some sort.
“Oh, this darkness! Why don’t the sun shine?” the man was muttering to himself. “I must have light! I will have light!”
“It is Pep Loggermore, and he is as crazy as a loon!” murmured Andy. “I had better tell the captain of this at once! The sailor may hurt somebody if I don’t!”
Andy turned around, to make a quick run toward the ship, when he heard the scratching of a match. A tiny flash of flame followed, and in that little flare of light he saw the crazed sailor bending over what looked to be a can of oil!
“He is going to set something on fire!” thought Andy. “Maybe the storehouse! That’s his crazy idea of getting light!”